quote:

Doesn't maxing out the forgiveness at $75,000 (I think that's the current suggested number) partially address this problem.

Just seeing this comment. This also seems like another way to make attempts at canceling student more fair, as far as I can see anyway...

quote:

What about the societal benefits of having a higher educated population? That's where my comment was coming from...

An easy claim to make, but a very difficult notion to measure. Most of the literature I'm aware of supports the idea that basic education generates significant spillovers at lower levels of overall national development. Having a larger number of literate and numerate people in society raises the productivity of those around them, increasing the wages of those who remain illiterate and non-numerate, for instance.
An example paper

External benefits (spillovers) from higher education surely exist, but they tend to be much harder to measure with any precision. Exactly how does my BA in literature make the Molly Maids who work for me more productive? How do I translate the increase in "public involvement" of college grads into higher income and a better set of life outcomes for high school grads?

We have pretty clear causal work that quantifies the effects of, say, literacy, in west African villages ... the wages of otherwise identical laborers tend to be higher in villages where a larger fraction of the population is literate, and the causal factor is the presence of a primary school.

But the corresponding relationship ... wages of high school degree holders are higher in US cities where the population has a higher % of college degree holders isn't a perfect parallel. Causality can go in both directions. And other aspects of economic and social infrastructure can drive wages AND attract the highly educated, making any evaluation of causality very difficult.

Supposing positive spillovers do exist, that's an argument for subsidizing education, but not necessarily making it free. That's exactly what we do.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

Doesn't maxing out the forgiveness at $75,000 (I think that's the current suggested number) partially address this problem.

Just seeing this comment. This also seems like another way to make attempts at canceling student more fair, as far as I can see anyway...

On fairness grounds, I think I could make a better case for forgiving 80% of the car loan of people making less than 15K, 60% for people making up to 20K, 40% for people making up to 25K ... you catch my drift.

P*D, I am also thinking about things that go beyond wages and easily quantifiable measures... like, mask resistance. What is the average educational background of mask resisters? That kind of thing...

Anyway, beyond that, I see what you're saying. I just think education should be free, whether it has a direct economic benefit or not. Call me a hippie.

quote:

that's an argument for subsidizing education, but not necessarily making it free. That's exactly what we do.

But isn't the argument for canceling student debt saying, the subsidization isn't working?

(I don't know if that's what they're saying, this isn't necessarily a rhetorical question)

Separate from that, please see my comments on the previous, if you haven't already, re the public service loan forgiveness cheaters etc. I'm curious what your thoughts are about that as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

Doesn't maxing out the forgiveness at $75,000 (I think that's the current suggested number) partially address this problem.

Just seeing this comment. This also seems like another way to make attempts at canceling student more fair, as far as I can see anyway...

On fairness grounds, I think I could make a better case for forgiving 80% of the car loan of people making less than 15K, 60% for people making up to 20K, 40% for people making up to 25K ... you catch my drift.

True, but that's not being proposed. If asked to decide between forgiving an education loan or forgiving a car loan, I'd choose the car loan. If asked to forgive an education loan or forgive nothing, I'd at least consider forgiving the education loan, pending what I learn from resources like this thread.

Perhaps the place to start is ending the student loan program and let the problem slowly solve itself.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
Perhaps the place to start is ending the student loan problem and let the problem slowly solve itself.

But student loans have been a great source of access to higher education for the less privileged. I don't want to retreat on access.

Also, student loans aren't the evil debt destroyer of worlds. In fact, there is very good evidence that debt has positive behavioral effects (skin in the game).

Example: Student Loan Nudges: Borrowing and Educational Attainment

I understand about the difficulty in quantifying the value of an educated populace. As a single data point, I'll offer this, knowing exactly how valuable single data points are.

My whole life has been different because of the GI Bill. My father was the first man in his family to finish college. He was a very intelligent, hardworking man who would have given his family a good life, both economically and otherwise, but the GI Bill made it possible for him to get an education that qualified him for a white-collar job that lifted us into the middle class, tending toward upper middle class.

What did this do for the economy or quality of life of the country as a whole? I don't know.

Somebody else would have gotten the job he had, so
I guess that's a zero sum. My sister and I received vastly more education than we might have otherwise. I guess other people would have gotten our jobs and written my books, although perhaps they would have been men, so perhaps we were part of progress for women in the decades since the government paid for my father's education. I do know that my life has been richer because of his education and mine.

So while perhaps I can't justify on an economic basis helping people afford to go to college without bankrupting themselves, I'd rather see my taxes spent on this than on so many other things. (Bigger jails, war-level weapons for police, more bombers, a purposeless border wall...)

What about people who made sacrifices so they could pay off their student loans? Do they get a refund?

I think the real problem is that undergraduate degrees are over-valued, both in what they cost and in the advantages they confer.

I'd rather see us put resources into apprenticeship programs, like they have in Germany. And definitely reduce, if not eliminate, the cost of an undergraduate degree. And encourage high school seniors to take gap years and live out in the world for awhile, as part of their education.

quote:

I am also thinking about things that go beyond wages and easily quantifiable measures... like, mask resistance.

And so was I ... I mentioned "public involvement" for instance, which isn't "economic" in $$$.

Take that, hippie!

On public service, the intent of the program is to benefit people in certain lines of work, which is a bit dodgy itself. We can all find exceptions that would seem absurd. Why is teaching in a northern Virginia public school, or working for the Museum of Modern Art in NYC socially "better" than ... I can come up with a lot of jobs that in my moral world are as "good" or better, but which don't count as "public service employment." Like a nurse at many hospitals that aren't non-profit, but who makes the same wage as his/her colleague down the street at a not-for-profit hospital.

You have to work at a "US federal, state, local, or tribal government or non-for-profit organization" for a decade to ensure that you don't have people who sign up to work a few shifts at a rural hospital and then move to a big urban area to make $$$ with loans relieved. You have make 120 consecutive payments to ensure you're not a deadbeat mooching off the government. And there are more rules. This has limited loan forgiveness to a tiny fraction of the borrowing population.

We can, of course, simply move to a system of general forgiveness after some time period, but we will have all sorts of adverse selection issues, and once again we'll be putting in place a regressive transfer of wealth to the already wealthy.

There are simply better ways to maintain access to the higher education system.

quote:

Take that, hippie! Wink

Anyway, P*D,

quote:

You have to work at a "US federal, state, local, or tribal government or non-for-profit organization" for a decade to ensure that you don't have people who sign up to work a few shifts at a rural hospital and then move to a big urban area to make $$$ with loans relieved. You have make 120 consecutive payments to ensure you're not a deadbeat mooching off the government. And there are more rules. This has limited loan forgiveness to a tiny fraction of the borrowing population.

Right, so my thinking was, why not reduce some of those rules/limitations, mainly the job-type ones, but not the 120 payments rule, it seems like that would be a good thing to do.


piqué,

quote:

What about people who made sacrifices so they could pay off their student loans? Do they get a refund?

I see this comment a fair amount.... I don't know what I think about it, but it certainly seems there's a not inconsequential number of people who feel that way.

quote:

I see this comment a fair amount.... I don't know what I think about it, but it certainly seems there's a not inconsequential number of people who feel that way.

... and they will tell their Congress-critter how unfair any blanket debt wipeout is for the young whippersnappers when THEY had to earn their way out of debt.

P*D, yep.

Or parents who made huge sacrifices to pay their kid's way so they wouldn't start out in life in debt, possibly compromising their ability to retire?

Not sure there is any way to make this "fair."

Maybe the most fair thing to do is to leave the program just how it is.